Justice vs. Injustice is a very prevalent theme in the text To Kill a Mockingbird, the song “You’re Crashing, But You’re No Wave” and the article The Nation: The Central Park Jogger; An Old Case in a Different New York. In To Kill a Mockingbird (TKAM), Atticus Finch is called on to defend a black man accused of rape. Before the case is turned over to the jury, Atticus presents the jury with his final argument. He believes that the case requires “no minute sifting of complicated facts,” and should be easily decided. Atticus asks the jury not to get caught by the Prosecutor's case, as they gave very few adequate points and are relying on the assumption that “all negroes lie, that all negroes are basically immoral beings.” Sadly, Tom Robinson…
In the Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird argues that the definition of equality is diffrent for diffrent people. There are many different examples of this throughout the story, and that prove that equality still has issues today. One example that shows the different definitions of equality is how different members of the town reacted to Atticus defending Tom Robinson. While some of the town supported Atticus with defending Tom, and even change their views like Mr. Underwood, who said he would defend Atticus the night some of the town tried to lynch Tom in the jail, and some people in the Cunningham family, since one of the Cunninghams almost acquitted the trial by not agreeing that Tom was guilty.…
The groups of people in Maycomb rarely allow different people to interact with each other. Sometimes, people get excluded because of the colour of their skin, or by the amount of money they carry in their pockets. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Helen Robinson, the wife of the convicted black man, can’t find a job after her husband gets accused of rape. She needed to support her family by getting a job, but nobody wanted to employ her because of what her husband was rumored to have done. Prejudice against Tom Robinson lead to his wife and kids not being able to get what they needed. Another example of exclusion in To Kill a Mockingbird is when Aunt Alexandra wouldn’t let Scout play with Walter Cunningham because he was poor. She says that his family is different from the Finches, and that he wasn’t as good as them. She also places certain families of Maycomb into groups that exclude the rest of the town from their activities. An example of this is when she ways that all Penfield women are flighty, after a Penfield girl giggled during church. According to her, all Maycomb families have a streak of their own, and that places them into their own groups. This lead s to exclusion from various other groups, because people don’t think you belong with them, and not being able to get what you want. If a person can’t feed their kids or support themselves, they can’t lead a good…
Is there really such a thing as true equality? Can equality really be found in places like court? In To Kill a Mocking Bird, Harper Lee says that all men are created equal in courts. The book proves that through the results of the trial and the actions of the people after the trial, not all men are created equal, even in courts…
“Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome.” (Rosa Parks) This quote is a very accurate representation of what life for people is like today. Yes, you heard that right. Today's society is not truly equal like it is portrayed to be. There are several authors that have written about what their life has been like, such as, How to Kill a Mockingbird, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian are all good examples of stories that portray how the world today is different, but still similar in many ways.…
Race relations have evolved over the course of the 20 and 21 century. It seen through the book, To Kill a Mockingbird. It is also shown through famous trials such as the Scottsboro trials, the Emmett Till murder trial, the Sacco and Vanzetti trial, and the Nuremberg trials. Although it is found a lot between African Americans, race relations have evolved between other races as well.…
Social inequity is an arising issue has been affecting billions of people around the world for centuries, and it needs more attention! Even innocent teenagers have been exposed to these types of prejudices. Of course, the effects of it are not good. Different kinds of literature are useful tools for shining a light on social injustice, and writers are taking advantage of this fact and writing many novels about social inequities. Authors have been writing articles and stories about racial, social, financial and gender inequities which reflect to today’s society to try and galvanize readers into action.…
In How to kill a Mocking bird , Harper Lee uses characterization to reval ideas of social justice. Social justice Is a very complex theory about making everything fair. Harper lee shows social just many times through Atticus some are very small and little noticed why some are the basis of the book. One appearance of social justice is where Atticus shows fairness to scout“ If you’ll concede the necessity of going to school, we’ll go on reading every night just as we always have. Is it a bargain?”…
“ I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin , but by the content of their character,” said Martin Luther King Jr. MLK was a Civil rights activist. This quote to me means that no matter what color or race you are, we are all equal. Now in the book, To Kill a Mockingbird inequalities are seen in the community, school, and churches.…
Social inequality was a major factor of society during The Great Depression. People frowned upon other races.Some welcomed them to their community but many others did not. In Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, There's a huge difference between two races. The novel explores human morality and shows many indications of it throughout the book.…
Imagine a world in which the tall people gave orders to short people. In this world, tall people got the best of everything and short people essentially got their rejects. Of course, short mates with short and tall mates with tall, creating a never ending cycle. Black people experienced this every day.…
In the United States of America, and globally, rising social inequality is very much a part of the average teenager’s life, whether they see someone who experiences it or are the victim of it. Also, literature can be a huge tool to have an impact on social inequality of an adolescent's life. Many problems, can be addressed by authors and even at times remedied with something as simple as a book.…
As pointed out by a pondering Jem, “There are four kinds of folks in [Maycomb]. There’s the ordinary kind like us and the neighbors, there’s the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down at the dump, and the Negroes.” (Lee, 302). The difference between these groups of people is based on their social class, their wealth, as well as their connection to the Finch family (as per Aunt Alexandra). This four tier system begins with the Finches and the townspeople at the top. These are the upper to middle class working people of Maycomb that contribute the most to the town. The second tier below that is the Cunninghams. The Cunninghams are poor farmers with an inbred, incestuous family tree and Aunt Alexandra refers to them as “trash” because of this. The third tier is the Ewells, who can also be referred to as “white trash” by their lifestyle and them literally living nearby to Maycomb’s dump. The fourth tier are the Negroes, which are despised by all because of typical Southern racism. These people are connected together by Jem’s explanation: “The thing about it is, our kind of folks don’t like the Cunninghams, the Cunninghams don’t like the Ewells, and the Ewells hate and despise the colored folks.” (Lee, 303). The natural hierarchy that this creates is due to prejudice, since the majority of every layer dislikes the layers below them and so on. They form assumptions in their head based off of the limited information they receive on the topic, leading to the ideology created by this demographic ranking system. This is how prejudice divides people in Maycomb’s…
Racism, the belief that some races are better than other races, it destroys society and it lowers one's freedom of speech, it was present in To Kill a Mockingbird from start to end. Most of the white community had a biased opinion about black people and their community,you see that when Calpurnia takes Jem and Scout to the black church because their father Atticus was away, but when they tell him about that their visit aunt Alexandra was not happy about it that there is segregation. Tom Robinson (a young innocent black man) falsely accused of raping a white girl Mayella Ewell, after him arriving at Macomb County there were some people from town that wanted to kill him before trial and later dies after the trial. Africans-American also served as slaves during that time, were given not much respect and if the white folks did not like them they would have been falsely charged and sent to jail or killed. Overall racism was active at all times in the novel and it got worse as the book proceeds and it shows how hard life was as a black person back then.…
Although American society has evolved from the one depicted in Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird, today’s society needs to be reminded that social and racial inequality is still present.…